 Thank you so much for being here, second day of Africa rights 2021, celebrating imagination, pleasure, activism. It's been incredible two days. So many, many thanks for joining us. All of you here and also all of you online. Just a few notes before we start. We'll be taking questions online from our online and from you. So if you're watching online, submit your questions using the question box below the video. And here just put your hand up and a microphone will find its way to you. Please turn off your mobile phones or put them on silence. We're not expecting any fire alarms this evening. So if one happens, it's real. And please make your way out safely. Following the emergency exit signs. We are in for a treat, our headline events, dismantling the patriarchy with Mona and Tahawi in conversation with Dr. Leila Hussein. Um, we will be, they will be discussing. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Award winning American Egyptian journalist, activist and author Mona Tahawi concludes our festival with the special headline events discuss the seven necessary sins for women and girls. So we are in for a treat. You can also get Africa rights merchandise, including with Mona's, the revolution is not polite. So just check the tables outside for that. And there's a QR code. We would love to have your feedback. It's really, really important for us. So please just get the QR codes and give us some feedback for the events. We'd really appreciate it. And with no further ado, please welcome to the stage. Mona Tahawi, Dr. Leila Hussein. I have to take a picture because this is really special. They're super excited to see people in a room. Actually, before we start, this is our first physical event for us. So we, we just excited the fact that there are people in the room with us. I think this has been like cancelled a few times. So I'm really happy that you are actually my first person I'm seeing. And we're wearing shoes. We're wearing shoes again. We're walking very slowly because it's like, what is this on my foot? We're wearing shoes again. We're wearing bras again. We're wearing bottoms again. So it took me a while to get dressed up for this today. Thank you so much. And thank you everybody who's here today because, you know, we have been on lockdown for nearly two years. And thanks to those who have joined us online. Please remember to, please remember to follow us on Africa rights UK. Make sure you use the hashtag. I'm sure you've been told a few times today. So thank you everybody for being here today. So I thought we need to set the tone a little bit. And in true Mona fashion, I think, let me tell a quick story. I met Mona a couple of years ago in Oslo. And I mean, I read about her work many, many times, actually went up to her and said, Oh my God, I really loved your article, why they hate us. You know, I remember reading the article just, and I met you a few months after that. And Mona comes on stage and says, Hello, everybody, my name is Mona Al Fahawi. I'm a Muslim woman and I like to fucking drink. And I was like, I was like, Oh, I said, Okay, so there's a lot of people like that exist. Okay, then that's good. And in a true, you know, in a true Mona statement, I would like to declare my faith, fuck the patriarchy. So before we start, I'm gonna, Oh my God, we haven't done this so long. I'm like, Oh my God, I need to look at notes again. So I would like to set the tone by actually read a little blurb about Mona's book, seven necessary sins for women and girls, a bold uncompromising feminist manifesto on how we defy disrupt, destroy the patriarchy. I hope you heard that. What would the world look like if girls were told they were volcanoes, whose eruptions were a thing of beauty, a power to behold. Thank you, Mona, for really creating this manifesto that will hopefully make sure I think people could say women and girls should have this book. I think everyone should have this book. Because I think in order to end patriarchy, we need to start where it began with men. I think that's the root of this problem. So before we get into our conversation, I would like to invite on stage, I would like to invite Laura Hanna, an Egyptian British actor and writer who's going to read a little apart from Mona's book on profanity, the section on profanity. Can I invite Laura? Hi. This is also, this also feels quite new for me after years in lockdown. So it's really lovely to be back. First to say, it's an absolute privilege to be able to voice some of Mona's words. I was asked to do this a couple of days ago and got sent the text and started reading her introduction and immediately felt very emotional and very energized. And the first thought I had was, I wish I had had this book when I was 12. Like I'd wish I'd had this book 20 years ago. I needed it then, but I still need it now. And after today, I will be buying it for my mum and my sister because even at 69, my mum needs to be reading these words. So I'm going to read an extract from chapter three, profanity. Uncle Sam, I want to know what you're doing with my fucking tax money. Because I'm from New York and the streets is always dirty. We was voted the dirtiest city in America. There are still rats on the damn trains. I know you're not spending it on no damn prison because you'll be giving black folk like two underwears, one jumpsuit for like five months. What is you all doing with my fucking money? I want to know. I want receipts. I want everything. Cardi B. My name is Mona Altahawi and this is my declaration of faith. Fuck the patriarchy. Whenever I stand at a podium to give a lecture, I begin with that declaration of faith. Whether I am speaking on a panel on feminism in front of an audience of a thousand in Lahore, Pakistan, at a summit for activists and politicians working to end violence against women and children in Dublin, Ireland, on a stage as part of an evening of multi-generational African feminists in Johannesburg, South Africa, or at a lunch for medical students in New York City, USA, my declaration never changes. I could say dismantle the patriarchy or smash the patriarchy or use any number of verbs that signal urgency, but I don't. I am a writer and I understand how language works. I understand how audiences and readers react to the language I use. I know exactly what I am doing and I say fuck the patriarchy because I am a woman, a woman of colour, a Muslim woman and I am not supposed to say fuck. In my experience almost nothing can match the power of profanity delivered by a woman at a podium unapologetically because how many women, not to mention women of colour, Muslim women or working class women or are ever even invited to the podium and of those how many when they get on stage still speak as if they are asking for permission to speak. I have lost count of the number of times that I've heard women on a panel preface every contribution as if our right to speak is an imposition, as if our contribution is a burden, as if our thoughts are secondary or tertiary even to the discussion at hand. How many times do you hear a woman dismiss or diminish her right to comment on an issue by saying I'm not an expert but how many times are women interrupted, spoken over and spoken for? We must recognise that the ubiquitous ways patriarchy has socialised women to shrink themselves physically and intellectually extend also into language, into what we can and cannot say. It is not just a fight for airtime, it is not just a policing of women's egos, it polices women's very language. At the heart of that policing standing guard over our language like a baton ready to strike is a concept that seems deceptively simple, civility. When Donald Trump was elected many truths that white Americans were oblivious to willingly or naively were forced onto their consciousness. It was impossible to deny that racism was a driving force behind his election and yet analysts and pundits insisted it was the suffering working class, read white working class and economic anxiety as if people of colour who were working class were immune from suffering or economic anxiety. Many white Americans exclaimed this is not an America I know precisely because they had refused to or had never had to come face to face with that racism and Trump's shameless expression of racism and bigotry finally forced some of them to see that America. Those of us who are not white and who have experienced that racism all too well have long known that America. Denial and gaslighting, the latter a form of psychological abuse that aims to make someone doubt their own thoughts, beliefs and perceptions went on full throttle as talking heads, politicians, media and others went out of their way to blame everything but racism for Trump's success at the polls. Moreover those of us who insisted on calling racism what it was rather than by a series of euphemisms were urged not to call a racist a racist and we were instructed to be civil when arguing with Trump supporters. For the sake of unity, free speech and healing, civility was held up as paramount. The obsession with civility no matter what was at times bipartisan as when both Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi a Democrat and congressman Steve Scalise a Republican both of whom are white criticized Maxine Waters a black democratic congresswoman for encouraging her supporters to protest Trump administration officials in public wherever they saw them but paramount for whom? Who does civility serve? Racism is not civil, racism is not polite and yet here were all those people lined up to insist that we be civil when talking about Trump and his supporters. Those people lined up to insist on civility were of course white. For white Americans who have no experience of racism it is a concept, a theory, an idea to be debated and not a lived reality to be endured or survived. Fuck that. Thank you. And that's just a little taster of that manifesto. And what was so interesting I didn't know the part Laura was actually going to read and before she walked into the green room that we were at Mona and I were having a very deep conversation of why we love Cardi B so much. She's one of my feminist icons just putting that out there. Another thing to declare. So Mona you know you're an award winning journalist you know activist commentator I mean your work has been featured in New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian. I mean the list goes on I really absolutely if you haven't followed Mona then something's wrong with you. So I think you need to start making sure that you follow a lot of her work especially her tweets are very interesting. Well in the morning you start with solidarity and starting my day and sending love and solidarity and then the fuck patriarchy follows up just after that so I definitely recommend you do that. So this book it's a follow-up to your last book which was the headscarves and hymens why the Middle East needs sexual revolution so you can see the amount of work you've been creating leading up to this. So let me give you a list of the seven sins that we need to be committing is anger, attention, profanity, ambition, power, violence and lust. So those are the seven things we need to be committing as women and girls. So my first question to you Mona is you've talked about I mean in the time I've known you and and following your work for the last few years and this is something I can absolutely relate to it's I a lot of my work stems from an anger that I had and I would like you to maybe unpack a little bit why anger has fueled a lot of your work. Okay so first of all thank you Leila it's a thrill and an honor to be in conversation with you because you are a sister comrade and I'm so happy that we're sitting on the stage together for our first in-person event. I want to thank Marcel and Nat and the whole team at Africa Rights for doing such a great job with the festival and when they asked me to do this I was like my first in-person event I'm so glad and so thank you thank you Marcel and Nat and the whole team thank you and I want to start with my usual start but I'm going to add something to it so my name is Mona Altahawi my pronouns are she her and I begin everything as I always do and it's such a delight to begin it in person rather than to yell into a zoom hole because I love it when I say it in person this is my declaration of faith fuck the patriarchy finally in person but I also want to take time out to recognize why this is my first person my first in-person event it is of course because of the pandemic and I want us to take a minute and reflect because many of us in this room come from communities who have most been affected by the pandemic in terrible ways in ways that we must all insist we never go back to this normal fuck normal because normal is what brought us here the day I left to come to London one of my aunts in Cairo died she was my dad's second sibling to die in three months in COVID related circumstances my uncle died in August a cousin of mine died in April and my beloved's father died last year in May so everybody in this room has been affected and to you all I give my love and solidarity and I want us to remember that in this country as the same in the United States there are fascist fucks who don't care that the people most affected by the pandemic are black people people of color working class people disabled people and the most vulnerable and marginalized so fuck going back to normal never go back to normal ensure that you destroy that normal because every single person in this room has either lost someone or know someone affected by that normal and I wanted to start with that because it's really important to remember why we're here and secondly this is my first as I keep saying my first in person event since March 6 2020 and that last event was an event in New York City by a really dear friend of mine an Egyptian drag queen called Anna Masraya whose name translates into I am an Egyptian woman and her event in New York is called Nefertiti's and there was an Egyptian drag queen a Palestinian drag queen and a Mexican drag queen and Anna Masraya asked me to speak as an Egyptian feminist giant and the theme of my talk was the revolution is my cunt so I promise you an evening full of profanities I'm taking notes hold on so having started in that somber notes where I urge you to remember to fuck normal I also want you to remember that the revolution is my cunt and and in opposition to JK Rowling and Margaret Atwood and all the other powerful people who are transphobic fucks I want to remind people I want to emphasize that cunts do not just belong to cis women and that that I am gender inclusive of all my gender non-conforming comrades fuck transphobia all right so what were you asking me no no anger no so anger you know this was all part of the anger was is anger I remember I remember I'm joking I'm joking so look anger is the first sin of the seven necessary sins because I want to tell you about an anecdote that happened when I was four years old that I talk about in the book I was four years old little girl in Cairo talking to a friend of mine across the street each of us speaking to each other from the balcony and I was so tiny that I had to stand on a stool so I could see my friend across the railing of the balcony and these two little girls are having a great time and this car pulls over and a man gets out of the car and he pulls out his penis and waves it at two little girls I was so tiny like I said I had to stand on a stool to look over the balcony so at first I was like I hid I hid from the man and then I stood up on the stool again and he was still there and he was beckoning me and my friend to go down so I picked up my slipper because in Egypt I mean Egyptians in the room will know what the slip of the ship ship I picked up my ship ship right and I waved it at this man because I was convinced that my anger would terrify him this four-year-old girl understood that something really awful was happening this fucking piece of shit was doing something really bad and he deserved to be punished and I was the one who was going to punish him a four-year-old girl believed that she had the power to punish this fucking piece of shit why why did I believe that because girls just like boys are born with what I call a pilot light of rage you know like in the oven you have a pilot light if you have a gas oven and you turn that pilot light on when you want to start baking or cooking or whatever right we all are born with that pilot light but we snuff out that pilot light in girls because this four-year-old me convinced I could terrify this guy but when I was 15 so fast forward nine years later my family is at pilgrimage in Mecca we had just moved to Saudi Arabia from the UK and I was sexually assaulted twice during Hajj who the fuck goes on pilgrimage to sexually assault someone once by someone who was probably a fellow pilgrim and then the second time by a Saudi policeman next to the Kaaba towards which we pray five times a day by that stage at 15 years of age I burst into tears and I could not say a fucking word I couldn't even tell my parents what happened I was so ashamed so this is where anger comes in because I quote studies in my book that show you that by the age of 10 10 girls around the world regardless of where you live because the study was north south east west by the age of 10 girls had accepted and believed that they were weak and vulnerable so that's what happened at four I am convinced I could terrify this man at 15 I am crying and ashamed about something that happened to me so this is why anger is important because anger is the fuel Audrey Lord the black lesbian and intellectual and poet Audrey Lord described anger as the fuel to the engine it's not the only thing that you need and that's why anger is what I call the junior sin I begin the seven sins with anger but you need much more but when you snuff out that pilot light of rage you have you've turned us into the 15 year old who cannot even speak what happened to her so we have to start first of all we have to leave girls alone I don't want us to teach girls to be angry they know how to be angry we have to stop unlearning the anger from where you're describing is conditioning so being conditioned from age of four to 15 because by the time you're 15 you have been conditioned to not speak up if you say anything you're the one who's feeling the shame the guilt and that's what you're describing your experience with exactly that so so I want us to tell girls that being angry is as important as being honest you know we teach children to be honest right continue to teach girls that their anger is a vital vital thing as vital as being honest can I can I can I push a little bit in terms when we talk about can we talk about women of color because that's a whole different context because I know from being a black woman whenever I go into a room I'm either gonna have to edit what I'm saying or if I don't say it I'm a cold bitch and if I express my passion and views I'm an angry black woman and how can you explain a little bit what that you know I think it's really instructive to also at this point explain what patriarchy is yeah how patriarchy works and how it fits into what you're saying yeah when I talk about patriarchy people think it's a man you know they're like who is this patriarchy tell me where he is so I can go there and like fucking destroy him okay go destroy Boris Johnson go destroy Donald Trump but patriarchy is still going to be there so patriarchy is not about one man patriarchy is not men patriarchy is so all around us and everywhere it's like asking a fish what is water yeah when you ask a fish what is water the fish is like what are you talking about what is water it's everything you know yeah so the definition then becomes patriarchy is a system of oppressions that privilege male dominance again right over people's heads so I've come up with an analogy that I hope helps I want you to imagine an octopus the head of the octopus is patriarchy and each one of the eight tentacles is one of those oppressions that together are that system that works to privilege male dominance it also works to privilege what I call foot soldiers of the patriarchy who are not necessarily men yeah so what are those tentacles the tentacles are mostly depending on where you live white supremacy capitalism misogyny homophobia ableism ageism transphobia all the isms yeah and I want you to imagine the person who is most strangled by those eight tentacles because when you imagine that person most strangled by the eight tentacles and how we can cut off all those tentacles to liberate that person when that person is free we are all free so and this isn't humanism because people often say to me you're just talking about humanism no no I insist that we go about chopping off the tentacles as feminists because this this is a fight that is driven by gender and sexuality in a very feminist way so this is to answer your question naila because you're talking now about women of color and our access to anger because you know when donald trump became president white women suddenly discovered their anger I was like well fucking hello without fucking time you know hello john the train I've been angry since I was four you know where have you been so and they and the thing about white women actions accessing anger and all these countless books about rage and anger and I don't know what is that they were the ones who had the most privilege and should have been angry a long long time ago and though because because they are the least affected now obviously they're affected by misogyny but when you look at all the other tentacles that will ensnare you and will ensnare me we have much more at stake which which is why you know the books about white feminism and all of that and I call it bespoke feminism a feminism that fits just the person who it's designed to fit so this is why it's so difficult for us as you know you as a black woman me as a woman of color because we have all of those other tentacles and we don't have the privilege to not be angry and so I asked people who have the privilege because after a while it does become a privilege you know so yes we're going to be called angry black women we're going to be called a bitch we're going to be called all of that let them call us what they want to call us because anger is a power anger is an energy and when I look at those tentacles and the octopus that I'm talking about it's a reminder too to men because patriarchy is not men that I want something much more than equality with them because when you look at that octopus black men are not free working class men are not free gay men are not free trans men are not free disabled men are not free so I am not going first of all I don't want to be equal to someone who's not free I want to be free second of all I am not going to wait for unfree men to unfree me amen to that so I want to be free I don't want to be equal to unfree men and so I want all the especially the cis men in the room to understand that the octopus hurts you too absolutely so join the feminist fight and say fuck the patriarchy absolutely absolutely just just a reminder for the audience and those watching us online please those watching us now you can send your questions through to obviously from the live streaming and please prepare your questions somebody will be coming with the mic and I've been told the mic will be sanitized see these are the kind of things you have to say as chair now which is interesting so I want to take us maybe on the other side of the sin now because I I think one when I was um preparing for this I thought which which were most important to me so anger was one of them that's why I asked that question but the other one it's lust so why is that a necessary sin for women and girls I think that's that's something that's really kept away from us at very early on absolutely well you know you started with what I call the junior sin which is anger and you're now asking me about the most senior sin because I've arranged the sins in order of importance and difficulty and that's why I say anger is like the easiest one you know and and you can't stop there now lust is the most difficult because you know it goes through that progression that you read you know anger attention profanity ambition power violence lust and lust I approach lust I personally because for me so I was born to an Egyptian Muslim family and this isn't specific to Egyptians or Muslims because it's it's in so many other countries and you know I've lived in the US since 2000 and it's definitely there at the heart of what is known as purity culture so I was raised to wait to wait before I had sex and lose my virginity in all these other other terms which I now reject utterly because we lose nothing when we have sex and in writing my book in writing heads carbs and hymens why the Middle East needs a sexual revolution and in writing the seven necessary sins for women and girls and more recently my newsletter feminist giant I've really seriously began to assess the language that I use when I talk about sex because I was socialized into waiting to have sex but I began to masturbate when I was 11 I'm like thank you Mona because if I started masturbating when I was 11 I would have lost my fucking mind I tell you because I I I obeyed I obeyed this wait but now I say I waited to have sex with another person because I've been having sex with me and really great sex with me since I was 11 so I I believe we need to teach children just how wonderful and powerful and necessary masturbation is and when the surgeon general in the United States was saying that she was fired for saying we need to teach children to masturbate so like reflect on the power of that that when you teach a child that they own their sexuality you could be fired from your job because patriarchy wants to own our sexuality so lust became something that I really had to wrestle with because I wanted to ask why did I wait to lose my virginity again I lost nothing and to have sex sex with another person see these are brackets now of my assessing the language until I was 29 now before I always tell people don't feel sorry for me because I have more than made up for lost time so although I was feeling quite guilty at the beginning I fucked the guilt out of my sister there's another tweet to everybody and also you know this thing about virginity you know like I've been saying this you've heard me say this before Leila you know what the fuck is virginity that why and does it always include a penis in a vagina what what happens when other places other places of your body are accessed do you know what I mean so I now I have sex with men and sex with women so exactly which part of someone's body along with my body is going to qualify as sex do you know what I mean so I have reassessed completely the ways that I was socialized to think about sex which is why I put lust at the end and I put lust at the end because lust was also the driving force behind why the Middle East sees a sexual revolution because people often ask me what is this sexual revolution you're talking about and so I tell them lust is the most important sin and the sexual revolution is the revolution we need because at the heart of that is the declaration like I say fuck the patriarchy the declaration I own my body because when you teach a child that the child owns their body you get fired for it and when I say I own my body it means that I own it not the state not the church not the mosque not the street not the home I own my body and through that declaration I determine who I have sex with and when I have sex with them again always always with their consent obviously but then I become the driver of my pleasure and of my joy I'm also an anarchist and I'm also polyamorous so I've taken all of these things I'm 54 years old now I spent a lot of time thinking about that's why I look very young oh because I fuck a lot but you know what I've I've tried to be really honest about this stuff so those of you who subscribe to feminist giant will know that my latest essay is about perimenopause and what it's been doing to my sex drive and I'm like okay menopause we need to fucking talk what the fuck are you doing to my sex drive it's it's those kind of honest conversations that we need to have so that we can talk about why as women of color we don't have access to anger but also as people like basically everyone who is not a cis man does not have access to our lust and many cis men also don't have access to their lust but they they they're in denial that they think they have it just in the same way that the only emotion cis men are allowed is anger cis men are also in delusional when they think that they own their lust in all the ways that they think they own it so let's have those honest conversations I'm standing on I'm sitting on a stage here telling you things about my sex drive and I have sex with men and women and I've been masturbating since I was 11 because shame and silence for the longest time denied me my ability to say that and when shame and silence happen the most vulnerable people are hurt and who are the most vulnerable people mostly anyone who is not a cis man so fuck shame and fuck silence if I if I put my therapy hat on for few seconds for me I'm always interested in process so in terms of when you were writing this book what was the process like for you because I can't imagine it was fun times every as you were writing through this book so maybe if you can describe what that process was like for you sure yeah well you know I think headscarves and hymens was much harder to write because headscarves and hymens was basically the book form of why did they hate us yes and there were so many times when I was writing so headscarves and hymens is is about the revolution in Egypt and the countries in the region and what happens on the revolution goes home and how we need a revolution that's about more than overthrowing the state because the state is not the only entity that oppresses us the state yes oppresses everyone but when you're someone who's not a cis man it's the state along with the street along with the home what I call the trifecta of patriarchy or the trifecta of misogyny and we need because if the state oppresses everyone the state the street and the home together or press women or press trans people or press queer people generally and there were so many times when I was writing headscarves and hymens that I had to literally walk away from my computer because it was it was visceral there were just so many stories that I was writing about that that were really difficult and then I wrote the chapter on on bodies and sex and virginity and all of that basically on my parents dinner table my parents were sitting there watching tv and I'm sitting there writing about when I was 29 and I finally had sex with another person going oh my god please don't read chapter six please don't read chapter six and I gave my parents my book and I said look I didn't write this book to hurt you I love you very much I wrote this book because this is my revolution but here it is and they're still talking to me so no and and because I follow you on social media I see your pictures with your dad I mean I think it's important to point out you know your sister wears the hijab oh my mom my sister so it's it's it's great that you know you you you're you're being in a position where you can be open and feel safe because I think that's really important to get felt safe that's that's well look I mean it's important to also say that my parents my family disagree with a lot of that of course what I say you know they don't agree with everything that I say we've had our difficulties you know but we're still there you know we've this is after many years of kind of like you know fighting it out and not everyone it's a massive privilege not everyone has that privilege and I recognize that there are many people whose families have not fought it out with them in this way where they're still they still feel loved and and for anyone in the room who is going through that I give you I offer you my love on solidarity because I know it's really difficult and I know there isn't always love and acceptance it's it's it is a revolution on many levels so heads carves and hymns was much more difficult to write seven necessary since for women and girls so if if heads carves and hymns was about the revolution and patriarchy in Egypt and the surrounding countries the seven necessary since for women and girls took my fight against patriarchy globally and and I did it because and it was part of the process because I got fed up of going into spaces where I had to preface everything I said by saying you know what I'm not here to tell you that where I come from is shit and where your where you're from is great because it's shit over here too and I would have to remind them it's shit over here too I mean Sarah Everard and what happened and you know policemen in Egypt broke my arms and sexually assaulted me a policeman in the UK arrested a woman on false charges of breaking lockdown and raped and murdered her so fuck the police everywhere and it's shit everywhere so thank you so I took that fight you know against patriarchy in the region globally because I wanted then to be able to sit in rooms around the world and say look I've got your receipts now it's shit in the US it's shit in China it's shit in France it's shit everywhere because patriarchy is like water to a fish so it was a much easier process I was like I don't have to constantly feel like I'm defending my people you know absolutely and I think that just a follow from that statement um I think what you picked up on it's how I think what in reading some of your articles you specifically talk about how patriarchy influences policies and laws maybe you can impact that little because I don't think a lot of people realize how much that's infiltrated into our system yeah oh absolutely I mean like I'm talking about the police and fuck the police here and fuck the police in Egypt but like who do the police hurt the most and there's a hierarchy of concern right so everyone paid attention when you know this awful this this terrible thing happened to Sarah Everard but when do they pay attention when it happens to black and women of color when do they pay pay attention to what the police does to people of color they're now telling you resist arrest are you fucking kidding me do you know what will happen if you're a person of color and you resist arrest oh my god they they kill people of color simply for existing as black and people of color and now they want you to resist arrest this is just fucking madness you know but but it it's it's instructive because then it allows those who have been the least hurt by patriarchy and in this instance or in this case in the UK a white supremacist capitalist patriarchy because then it shows you how it works because it worked against the most perfect of victims Sarah Everard but people recognize it as horrific because the people who least expect to be hurt by it were hurt by it so and and this is also why it's much easier for patriarchy over here and it prefers to do that to point to patriarchy over there so in the United States for example women were always told white women especially you should be grateful you live here and not in Saudi Arabia oh yeah meanwhile meanwhile they are building a theocracy in the United States that is as lethal and and on the global stage worse than the one in Saudi Arabia because you've got Donald Trump voted for by white evangelical fundamentalists you've got the supreme court packed with white evangelical fundamentalists and they don't just impact the United States they impact the entire world and so when you're telling people be grateful that you don't live in Saudi Arabia but you're you're basically creating a patriarchy right here people are not paying attention to the policies that patriarchy does like banning abortion in Texas and about to destroy reproductive justice and reproductive rights in the United States because it's created by patriarchy that looks like them you know it's white women who see white men creating a patriarchy and they think ah it's okay it's my father it's my husband it's not okay because nothing will save you from patriarchy but they think their proximity to that patriarchy and its power will will protect them nothing will protect you from patriarchy so patriarchy is in finance patriarchy is in the funds that are being taken from domestic violence shelters patriarchy is not telling you that intimate partner violence which has spiked during the pandemic is a form of terrorism i don't use the word terrorism against anything other than intimate partner violence because it is it's a it's a political act of violence that is designed by it by its very nature to terrify you into changing your behavior that is intimate partner violence and when you look at statistics for incarceration other than of course alongside with the racist ways in which black and people of color are incarcerated at much higher rates did you know especially in the united states i think your your figures here will be similar that if a woman murders her partner and it's usually in self-defense very few women just up and get up in the morning and go i'm gonna murder him but if a woman murders her partner most often in self-defense she gets something between six to 12 years in prison if a man murders his partner very often very least likely not to be in self-defense they get two to six years yep for every 1000 rapes that happen in the united states only five end up incarcerated that's patriarchy affecting policy and laws absolutely so how then do we apply the seven sins now that we're coming out this pandemic and i'm gonna i'm gonna go first because i'm you know i'm my work i'm known for the for leading the anti-f-femogenism mutilation campaign by the way language is so powerful how do we use the term fgm anymore for me touching a child's genitalia is a sexual assault by taking a knife is a serious sexual assault yes so how then do we apply the seven sins to that you know by by highlighting fgm because because of the pandemic no one's talking about fgm anymore and and every 11 second a girl is being mutilated that's not considered pandemic but that's because it's mainly affecting black african children and it's a current stats that shows black african the black african girl child is the most vulnerable human being in the world yeah so if i had to use the octopus the octopus she's the one in the middle absolutely and then how do we apply how do we use well that this manifesto that's where i start leila that's where i start i start with the black girl child because when the black girl child is safe from that octopus yeah when she is free from that octopus we are all free that's it and and thank you for the language i think it's so important because so many women in my extended family have been cut egypt is the country in the world with the highest number of women and girls who have been cut many people are shocked when they hear this yeah but statistically speaking according to the to the population and the number of women and girls who have been affected the highest in the world but so often because of racism people think oh this just happens to black girls and this isn't to diminish the fact that the black girl child must be the first to be liberated but it's a way of letting egypt off the hook yeah and and maintaining this racism do you know what i mean a lot of people say to me i go there for my holidays i'm like well yeah yeah it happens and it happens exactly a lot of rich people it was a big holiday destination into a couple years ago but literally a lot of people don't know because it's associated with black skin color exactly yeah it's a way of perpetuating racism exactly that so look i think it's really important to recognize that this pandemic is a fucking disaster for women and girls and queer people it's truly a fucking disaster and we're just now emerging and the ways that we will emerge my biggest fear as we emerge is that we're going to be told because it's always playing out number wise like in the job market in the us the people who have lost their jobs at the highest rate are black indigenous and women of color mothers of color and the people who are getting their jobs back at the highest rate are white men and white women and we're going to be told as we emerge from the pandemic as we're always told after disasters after wars after all of these things just that they did after the second world war the men need the jobs because the men are the other providers women need to go home now and have babies and when you look at who are the two most powerful countries in the world it's the united states and china right they are now going through the sharpest decline in birth rates in decades and in the united states they're obsessed especially with the decline of white babies the white replacement theory and in china they're obsessed with a decline in hand chinese babies which is why they're punishing muslims in concentration camps the Uighurs in concentration camps in china so when you look at china and when you look at the us it's basically a form of supremacy and i tell people we are not those of us who have wombs we are not walking wombs for white supremacy or hand supremacy or capitalist white supremacy we are not i my body refuses i'm child free by choice but i refuse on every level to to offer my body as this it's it's always a proxy battlefield in the civil war between patriarchy's because there will be the civil war between the u.s american patriarchy and chinese patriarchy so this is my concern as as we emerge from this this pandemic now and we and it is there was always this pandemic of violence against women girls and queer people and no one paid attention to it where's the vaccine where's the vaccine against the 30 increase in intimate partner violence during the pandemic can you imagine there's a fucking plague outside and you're getting the fuck beaten out of you inside and how the hell do these men who beat their wives and children how the hell do they go to sleep at night without wondering you know what she's in the kitchen all day she could just stab me to death when i'm asleep she's in the kitchen all day she could just poison my food these fuckers don't even think that we will fight back do you know what i mean so it's time to fight back this is where violence i'm hoping we're going to talk about violence because i want to put these fuckers on notice that we're not only going to fight back but i want you to be terrified not the people in this room because i love you all but i want you take this message tell them mona said be terrified be terrified because we're fucking not taking it anymore enough how can you fucking beat someone up at home when there's a plague outside what is wrong with people how is this happening you know i feel like i feel like mona sensing my energy because that was going to be my last necessary thing we're going to come to violence why is it necessary so go okay well they regard like she's reading my i'm like i should really mind well look so violence you know i my first line the first line in my book is i wrote this book with enough rage to fuel a rocket i have enough rage to portion it out anyone who wants some rage come talk to me i'll give you some but but you know i wrote the book very soon after i did something that kind of completed the circle of four-year-old mona waving her ship ship at the men um the flasher and 15-year-old mona who was just so ashamed of being sexually assaulted she didn't know to put out you know the shame on the men who sexually assaulted her and then something happened in 2018 that was just fucking brilliant because um i started hashtag moss me too to honor tarana Burke who started saying me too in 2006 and remember that this is a black feminist who started me too not white actresses who spoke out against and it's very brave thank you it's very brave that they spoke out against Harvey Weinstein but remember tarana Burke and tarana Burke has been saying it for black and girls of color since 2006 because she wants us to focus on the girls and women and queer people who can who least have the privilege to say me too so i wanted to create a space for women of muslim descent to say me too by talking about the kind of sexual assault that happened to me during pilgrimage because in february of 2018 someone told me about a young pakistani woman called sabika khan who had been subjected to sexual assault in maca very similar to the way that i was and i was like fuck this shit how is this still happening my it happened to me in 1982 and i wrote about it in headscarves and hymens blah blah blah so i started hashtag moss me too and it went viral and for five days i was getting these horrendous stories you know this is why self-care is is like audrey lord said self-care is an act of political warfare absolutely because when you take care of yourself it's not just about taking a bubble bath and saying i feel great and it's not just about going and buying you know fantastic orange boots and saying i feel great which i do by the way but it helps a little bit it's an act of political warfare because they're trying to destroy us and in refusing to be destroyed in claiming our pleasure in claiming our joy we say fuck you we will not be destroyed so as an act of political warfare i had to take care of myself after five days of people sending me stories and by the way the stories did not just come for muslim women and girls a muslim man wrote to me and said to me when i was a child i went on hajj with my family and i was sexually assaulted as a boy so enough with this you know what brothers we've got to protect the sisters ah i want to be protected i want to be free from needing to be protected i do not want your protection i want to be free from patriarchal fuckery because this man as a boy was sexually assaulted by another man so cis men in this room please take a really good look at your friends at your brothers at your comrades and fucking intervene tell them to stop because if they don't i'm coming for them so five days after i started hashtag mosque me too i went to a club with my beloved because dancing for me is that is my self care and i just wanted to just let go of all these horrific stories that the women girls and this man had shared with me and i'm 50 years old by this stage when i was 15 years old i was covered from head to toe in hijab only my face and my hands are showing 2018 in a club in montreal canada i'm wearing a tank top and jeans i'm 50 years old i'm having a great time and then i feel a hand on my back side and i'm like you're fucking kidding me not today satan uh-uh so luckily because you know these fucking sneaky bastards most of the time they do it so sneakily you don't even know who they are and you're like what i saw who he was because it was a dance floor full of people dancing and it was one guy just walking away so i was like that's him i ran up to him he wasn't expecting it of course right because they don't expect us to fight back this way i'm gonna like i'm gonna fight back so i grabbed his shirt from behind so forcefully he fell and i sat on him and i punched and i punched and i punched and every time i punched i said don't you ever fucking touch a woman like that again and every time i thought i was done punching him i was like uh i'm not done punch punch punch at what point these two guys tried to stop me from beating him up and my beloved bless him said to them uh uh he assaulted her first leave her and then when i finished punching him i stopped and then he stood up he adjusted he was wearing his cap backwards of course so he stood up and he wanted to look at me because he wanted to see who is this woman who just beat the fuck out of me and he you know made eye contact and then i went whack across his jaw i almost broke my fingers and he understood that i was going to start punching him all over again so he ran away and then we went to get a glass of water at the bar and one of the club managers comes up to me and he's like what happened and i explained and he's like why didn't you ask security to intervene i was like what are they gonna do what nothing and then he says to me he looks at my beloved uh and he goes why didn't you let your husband take care of it hey i was gonna beat him up trigger words trigger words so i said to him first of all he's not my husband second of all this is my body i take care of it and he looked at me like i was speaking in martian or something you just could not understand and it's because patriarchy thinks that it's going to have this negotiation with patriarchy because whenever i talk about this and and then of course i started another hashtag which went viral because my entire life is you know hashtags so i started hashtag i beat my assaulter and again stories from around the world but the reason that this is important is because when i talk about this i'm accused of inciting violence and it's really important to understand where the violence began i fought back violence has been instigated on my and our bodies for centuries by patriarchy and patriarchy wants the other side of patriarchy my husband to fight back for me because that's that's allowed that kind of violence because it enables and protects and that kind of violence this protects is that negotiation over our bodies as proxy battlefields but when we say i don't want to be protected i will fight back oh mona don't you think violence begets violence i'm like uh uh no no what do centuries of patriarchal violence beget they beget me fighting back so remember that and put them on notice because i want patriarchy to be fucking terrified i want to i want to i want to i want to conclude this conversation which because i want to give the audience a chance to ask you a question but i really want to come come to one of the i think i mean they're all important but there's one i really want us to end with its power the power is so necessary well i think when when we talk about power i think what people think is kind of like you know in the run-up so tereza may margaret fatcher hidry clinton right and they just think oh yeah we need more women in politics and i'm like no no it's not about having women in politics you know for those of us who assist women just because us two cis women are you know each of us again as i said not all cis women no cis women have vaginas but not all women have vaginas just because you have a vagina and i have a vagina as cis women does not mean that we are allies it doesn't work like that what what you are my ally when you are dismantling patriarchy you are my ally when we are fighting patriarchy so this simple or you're a woman you have to support a woman well first of all like i keep saying let's unpack are we talking about cis women are we talking about trans women are we talking about gender queer people and who is allowed womanhood because that's part of the conversation and then this simple oh i want to vote for i want to vote for a woman because i'm a woman it's not that simple so what i wanted to do with the chapter on power was to ask what is power and power is destroying the patriarchy power is standing up against all the tentacles that ensnare us because of that octopus called patriarchy and power is the ability to look patriarchy in the eye and say i don't want to be protected i don't just want to vote for a woman because tereza may wears a bracelet that says this is what a feminist looks like and and frida carlo whatever yeah all kinds of fuckery yeah she did or is either a t-shirt or a bracelet or something you know it's it's about much more than having a woman because those women are what i call foot soldiers of the patriarchy because what patriarchy does is it owns this cake that it calls power and then it throws crumbs to us and it tells us to fight over the crumbs and i don't want the crumbs i don't want that because what it ends up doing is it does make margra outward fight the rest of us and tell us to be civil because as you heard laura reading fucks ability when it comes to my humanity when it comes to the humanity of trans comrades when it comes to the humanity of black and people of color who have been most hurt by this pandemic fucks ability and so what what the chapter on power is doing is that it's saying stop fighting for those crumbs because i don't want those crumbs what i want is the whole cake and not even the cake that patriarchy has i want my own cake because being free and being powerful isn't doing what a man does that's too simple i don't want to do what a man does i want something much more i want to be free of patriarchy so what i do in the chapter on power is i unpack what power means it doesn't mean having a woman as the head of the cia it serves me nothing that a woman can torture in the same way that a man can that's not power so what power is is dismantling the patriarchy and ensuring that those most hurt by the tentacles of the patriarchy are the ones that we liberate and that we recognize that power the power lies in us that quote the way you said volcanoes is inspired by Ursula K. Lagan and she gave this amazing speech to young women who are graduating in the 1980s where she said to them i want you to imagine that you are volcanoes and that when you erupt you change the maps of the world and she said you have to recognize you have to recognize the power of your eruption because basically patriarchy tells us we have no power so you have to remember your power you have power do not allow them to take that power away from you and do not accept their crumbs say fuck your crumbs and and stand in your power and destroy the octopus amazing thank you so much i and i'm and i'm very really happy that you brought up you know just because it's a woman and who has a vagina that doesn't mean you're actually i have a funny story about um Theresa May um every time we and in a room it feels like a scene from the real housewives or something we ignore each other we have this history of um because i've been very critical i've been very critical of uh Theresa May for for many many years and there was a documentary about fgm the rule of filming for channel four and we created a six foot vagina costume and i had a guy wearing it we were supposed to chase her down the streets um myself and the director didn't want to mention it to the lawyers at channel four but they found out so they came and stopped us so that's my so it's that idea of you know just because i don't know we biologically look the same that doesn't mean she's an ally so i think and many times when i've heard you know talk about the footage of patriarchy the community i come from that's the battle i mean all the time it's the women who are at the forefront of of of ensuring patriarchy continues because they accept those crumbs thinking that it's going to give them power and protection absolutely absolutely so i'm sure the audience is dying to ask a lot of questions so cannot who's who's who's in charge of the sanitized mic here we go so who is ready to go over there my god this is our first question in an audience since the pandemic it's so exciting i think i might cry get me too it's amazing hello everyone i just want to say that tomorrow is my tata fifth birthday and this has been a fantastic segue into a birthday like this because as a nigerian muslim woman i had my revolution just five years ago and sitting here and hearing all of this has made me very emotional and i am so grateful for this platform now i never identified as a feminist but i had always can you hear me again yeah yeah okay i've never identified as a feminist i always say i'm a gender equality advocate and that's because i wasn't fully comfortable with the negativity attached to feminism and my question to you now is how do people like me who are in transition come to terms with internalized misogyny there are different ways where i think that i am fighting the good fight but in reality it's my conditioning that comes true so i would be grateful for some insight or tips practical tips so how i can fully embrace the woman i'm becoming so first of all i wish you a birthday tomorrow full of love and joy and i'm honored that you're here on the eve of your birthday yeah um look i i often tell people you know whenever i get a question about you know feminism and i'm i'm not so comfortable with feminism or anything you know kind of similar to your question i first of all begin by reminding people that i haven't always been like this i didn't come out of my mother's room yelling fuck the patriarchy i like to think of baby mona saying fuck the patriarchy but that just wasn't the case you know it took me a really long time to become the woman that i am you know and and that's why um the kind of like the the the theme or the sub theme or the subhead of the seven necessary sins for women and girls is feminism in 3d and what i mean by feminism in 3d other than that you know the three-dimensional thing is that each one of the d's is defy disobey and disrupt so i always urge people to find ways every day to defy disobey and disrupt the patriarchy now when when we begin any kind of exercise regimen especially when we begin lifting weights i often liken this to lifting weights you don't go to the heaviest weights at the gym and think that you're gonna lift them right because that's just not gonna you're gonna hurt yourself so you begin with the lightest set of weights until you work up the strength to then move on to the next and then move on to the next this is what i want you to imagine the three d's are like so start off with the the weights that will begin to kind of you know exercise your feminist muscles because i talk about feminist muscles here yeah but recognize to that when you reach the stage where your feminist muscles are ready to go to the next stage if you don't go to a heavier set of weights you're going to lose whatever power that you accumulated in that exercise so always challenge yourself like form gather that power make sure that your muscles are getting stronger and stronger and then when they get too easy now for it's too easy to lift these like weights go to the next one so go to another set of three d's that continue to challenge you and i fully believe that this this is how i became who i am and just find ways of daily defying disobeying and disrupting the patriarchy and it you'll be amazed and astonished at just like the audacity that you that you develop because i'm not 54 years old i'm like days if not weeks hopefully days away from menopause and i'm like oh my god the power that i have it's not even zero fucks that i have it's like negative zero fucks that i have i'm like bring it you know patriarchy if i thought that i was destroying you before you know how old did you say you're going to be 35 oh my god wait to wait until you're 53 or like 54 so just do the feminism in 3d and always challenge your feminist muscles with a heavier set and you will get more powerful your feminist muscles will flex like the kids say flex next level you know all the other stuff you're welcome i'm going to take one more from here then i'm going to go online so this one that sorry i lost my phone um firstly thank you for for your reflections on just everything and particularly violence um and make me think of this thing where people are often like ah violence is not the answer and it almost always feels like you're not asking the right question if violence is not the answer um so thank you for the way that you have interpreted it um i have long been fascinated with the idea of like violence and knowledge and how certain kinds of knowledge um is as a result of violence and the kinds of knowledge one can accrue from consensual violence and i'm very interested to understand sort of when you've been able to opt in to consensual violence what are some of the hardcore truths or joys that you've been able to tap into um yeah that's it before you give up the mic um to tell us a little about what you mean by consensual violence instead of we're on the same page sure sure uh a difficult question um i guess the way one defines violence is so um i think if i were to instantiate it for myself it would be like any time where i have like necessarily engaged in like kink because it's like oh there's like obvious obvious violence there um and that is often like a way that one can can think about it another another way is you know if you are a person of color and you choose to date like someone who is white that can be a form of consensual violence um etc etc um yeah thank you i i appreciate that because i wanted everyone in the room to be on the same page as us and you know according to the way that you want to define it sure thank you okay look you know one of the things that that i go to great lengths to explain in the chapter on violence is that you know the most liberation movements around the world in fighting colonization and imperialism and occupation of any kind have resorted to violence and some have been allowed that violence and others have not been allowed that violence so we think of Palestinians we think of South Africans we think of the Irish we think of so many contexts in which the resistance to occupation colonization and imperialism has involved violence and who has been allowed that violence who hasn't or we think of the United States where we think of you know Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X and then the Black Panthers you know so that kind of violence people um sometimes reluctantly will accept but but they will understand why it's happening you know and in those forms of violence women have been allowed to partake you know but it's really interesting just how much they've been allowed to partake because one of the people i mentioned in my book is a woman called Elaine Brown who was the only woman who led the Black Panthers and she was asked to be the to head the Black Panthers for four or five years and then she eventually left because even though the Black Panthers were the only um form of resistance in the kind of Black liberation that she wanted she recognized that the misogyny within the Black Panther movement was was was unacceptable for her and she left and this is why I also quote the Combahee River Collective which were Black Socialist queer women who said when Black women are free we will all be free kind of like the octopus analogy you know so I ask in my book um I want everyone to consider patriarchy as a form of occupation it is the oldest occupation in the world it's the most universal form of occupation in the world and when we start to think of it in that way then we can start to kind of make those analogies you know because people don't think of of patriarchy as a form of occupation but it's all over the world it's historical it's everywhere and it's keeping us from being free and when I say us I'm not just talking about women it's it's basically keeping anyone who's not a man and the majority of cis men too if they really sat down and reflected on it honestly you know so I say it is my right to resist that oldest form of occupation using any means necessary to quote Malcolm X you know so and and if women were allowed in those contexts to use violence when it's a violence that isn't against a colonizer that we all agree we don't like it's suddenly no no no you're being violent against me now you know you can fight the white colonizer but you can't fight me and that's why I say patriarchy has to be recognized as that oldest form of occupation so I claim violence violence is my right because it is my right to free myself from that occupation now when it comes to BDSM and other forms of of kink I highly recommend a memoir that was recently published by a Palestinian American good friend of mine called Randa Jarrar my what's it called my ex is a is a country I forget what it's called just look up Randa Jarrar Palestinian Egyptian American author and she talks at length about exactly what you're talking about she talks about the power of kink to liberate us from patriarchy's conditions and and the conditions and the limitations that it places on our sexuality she talks about kink especially for bodies of color whether they are gender non-conforming or or cis and about the kind the form of liberation that kink can bring about there through role play through consensual violence through all of that so I highly recommend her book it's she she describes it beautifully now when it comes I was really interested that you said when it comes a person of color dating a white person in consensual violence because I mean we could talk about this forever it's and I'm it's a really really important and necessary approach to talking about violence and sex and sexuality so thank you for introducing it to the room I think my biggest contribution would be to say read read Randa and become more flexible all of us to become more flexible in our definitions of violence and and acceptable forms of violence rejecting even that term acceptable when is violence my right when I say I want to be free of that oldest form of occupation which is patriarchy and then kind of like taking it there so I hope when you read Randa that that is my answer to your question because I think that she is exactly the person who will be best to address your your question and thank you for coming hi so my question was about anger so basically I'm thinking about when we look at revolutions so for example the Sudan revolution we have so many women who are at the forefront or you're looking at Black Lives Matter you have that famous picture of that woman who was arrested at Baton Rouge but the problem that I find is that with anger we often move from action towards that anger and instead look at glorification so I wondered what you would think because I feel like a lot of the times with female anger we glorify it instead of actually taking that anger and then using that towards some sort of action so I wonder how do we move away from that glorification and instead use some sort of action towards that anger right okay thank you for your question and thank you for reminding the room of the the Sudan revolution and thank you for reminding the room of women's central role in the revolutions that have happened in the region you know historically and in in contemporary times because I think what happens and this is one of the reasons that I wrote heads carves and hymens in that when a revolution happens we're recruited all of us are recruited and we're told look this we have to overthrow the state you know we have to get rid of this fascist fuck you know because we're all oppressed but then when that happens and then I say well what about feminism you know they're saying no no no you know first we've got to release all the political prisoners we've got to end torture we've got to fix the environment we've got to basically fix everything and then we'll come to you as if we're some kind of like niche project you know as if like you know when we finished everything ah oh you're still here okay feminism you know and and and that's why I talk about the trifecta of of misogyny or the trifecta of patriarchy because if the state oppresses everyone the state the street and the home together oppress women and queer people so those pictures and and my interpretation of the the women who are highlighted in Sudan or the woman in baton rouge is slightly different than yours I don't think that the the the media especially highlighted those women to glorify female anger I think the media highlighted those women as a form of kind of like ah women are revolutionaries too you know and look at this woman who's standing reading poetry for people in Sudan yay women in Sudan you know and then it's just like it just it was like the same with the Kurdish female soldiers who are liberating women from Daesh you know they just became this kind of like they were objectified as these kind of like sexy female revolutionaries they got one or two pages and that was the end of it these are political activists who put their lives on the line you know who are willing to die for the revolution or willing to be hurt for the revolution so for me I don't see it so much as glorifying female anger I see it as objectifying female revolutionaries or women who are revolutionaries and they should be taken much more seriously than this objectification because what that objectification does is it allows our men now to say okay you know what thank you thank you for your service the revolution is finished now as if a revolution finishes you can go home now and we're gonna go and negotiate with the military or with the president or whatever and get what we need and you're like where are the women who risk their lives you know shoulder to shoulder with you why aren't they sitting on the negotiating table with you to negotiate dismantling this fascist fuckery that we will risk our lives against you know so this is why I would hesitate against and this is why I call it they would just they just objectify women as these kind of like oh yay women can be revolutionaries okay let's go talk to the guys now because they're the you know they're the leaders you know so and as I say over and over anger is just the the junior sin it has to move into action because if anger is internalized and not externalized it becomes toxic and girls often girls will self harm they will hate themselves it turns into sadness and shame you know but if if anger becomes the only sin that you employ then it just becomes this corrosive destructive thing because it needs to be channeled into something channel your anger somewhere and that's why Audre Lorde said it's it's an energy for your engine of revolution so don't take it inside it's toxic it's corrosive don't just use it because it can destroy you channel it into something like saying excuse me I risk my life too I'm not just you know a two page spread because you know I love that picture of the woman in baton rouge but she's a she's a leader she's not just a meme you know so I want anger to become that thing that we use to ensure that our power is not crumbs that our power is the entire cake so I'm gonna I want to ask two questions and this is from online um so first question is such joy to be able to witness this conversation today thank you my question is as we continue to fuck the patriarchy and fight for to be fight for us to be free how do we cultivate rest very important question it really is you know this is where I I have to really really emphasize and I love that Nana did it yesterday in her session for those of you who are here for the sex lives of African women I have to emphasize again and again my gratitude to black feminists because black feminists in the US especially today and I hope that black feminists in the UK are too I don't follow black feminism as closely here as I do in the US everything from something called the nap ministry to other black feminists emphasize rest as a form of revolutionary resistance you know because this grind that we were always told you know like you're constantly working you're constantly chasing something constantly who does that serve you know it serves that octopus the patriarchy we deserve rest we deserve joy we deserve pleasure we deserve to take naps and I'm learning all of this like I said from you know black feminist comrades so truly my gratitude and and my thanks to them and rest is really important because you need your energy to fight the patriarchy you need your energy so that they because as I said at the beginning they do want to destroy us this pandemic has has destroyed communities from which the majority of people in this room come black and people of color disabled people working class people people were most hurt by the octopus called patriarchy it is determined to destroy us and our refusal to do that grind for that octopus is a form of resistance so rest is absolutely essential and it's something that I have to learn you know no actually um uh during the pandemic and then the the uprise of black lives matter myself and a really good friend of mine who's a writer feminist Fatima Hadji we founded safe spaces for black women last year for that specific reason because we needed a space to come together and talk about our frustration but also talk about happiness joy pleasure and that's the areas we really really struggle with yeah actually I'm going to ask you if you can follow us and support us that'd be great because this is another area again because of this patriarchal system these are spaces that are still underfunded there's no resources because black women are still not seen as the most like I said you know literally this is a research at my who the most vulnerable human being in the world is the black girl child who now becomes a woman so it's so important so I really love that question thank you um next one hi mona how do you think we forge and maintain effective allyship as feminists by this I mean allyship acknowledges respects our different experiences of patriarchy that difference is really important I mean I quote many many feminists in Seven Necessary Sinceful Women and Girls but this is something that Audre Lorde talked about at length that differences are important and it's important not to just kind of gloss over our differences because we walk through this world in very very different shoes when I walk through the world it's a very different experience than say a black woman who walks through the world then say a trans woman walks through the world then say a disabled woman you know and we have to recognize those differences not as a way to create divisions between us because this this is part of the whole unity delusions you know let's be civil let's be unified but who who ends up sacrificing the most for the sake of unity you know and it's the people who are often hurt the most who then end up giving up the most for the sake of unity so when it comes to allyship I want those of us who most have privilege so I sit here and I and I'm speaking to you with so many levels of privilege and this isn't so that I can guilt trip anyone or guilt trip myself for guilt guilt is is absolutely corrosive nothing is achieved from guilt but I recognize that I am an able-bodied woman I am a woman who has a platform who who has a large audience and so many other privileges that I have a cis woman in a world that is horrifically transphobic I'm queer so I'm not going to do the the cis heteronormativity thing but I'm cis and I'm queer so there's a bit here and a bit there but at the end of the day I have incredible levels of privilege that that obligate me to recognize those who have less because I recognize for example that in November 2011 when Egyptian police broke my arms and sexually assaulted me and I was detained for 12 hours if it wasn't for who I am I they could have raped me and they could have killed me or disappeared me so the reason that I am here is because of who I am that I'm famous that I have a platform that when I tweeted out you know beaten arrested in Tehran ministry in 15 minutes one five hashtag Fremona was trending so when we recognize when when we can sit and be honest with ourselves and recognize those places of privilege that we have it's not to beat ourselves over with guilt but it's to say who my my dream is to have this stage as wide as possible I often tell people when I want you when when you think of rights think of a room that has a ceiling that is high enough to allow everyone to stand in it not just someone of your own height and think of a stage that is wide enough to have as many people on it as possible because that that's how we we can begin to think of being an ally and being intersectional as Kimberly Crenshaw coined that phrase and that's how we begin to recognize how our privilege then can become something positive rather than something that is meant or that we end up using just to guilt trip ourselves into I'm going to shut up now because I have so much privilege no be more proactive with your privilege make sure that you expand that stage make sure that you remind people of those who have less privilege and keep that ceiling as high as possible so I think this is this is how I want people to start thinking of being an ally the widest possible stage and the highest possible ceiling thank you so I'm gonna keep the I won't be asking any more questions because I've been told five minutes I'm like damn it this is so good but I think maybe I just want to um maybe if you can leave us with lasting just what would be the last word to this audience well I want to say thank you for everyone who came because I it's it's a truly moving experience to be in a room to see so look I love the world and I love people and you know this this feminist killjoy thing you know I I'm I truly love people and I truly love the world and I'm a tenacious optimist I believe in us you know and this this is I'm gonna get all like cheesy and and you know like touchy feeling everything but I truly love the world and I have missed the world and I have missed people I really have and all these zoom events as wonderful as they were in that we can we could talk to the world you know I would talk to friends I gave a keynote to South Africa on behalf of Winnie Mandela's birthday like three weeks ago they were all great for connecting us but I felt like I was yelling into a hole you know like ah and then after it I'm like you see I'm like this yeah after I'll be like oh my god where am I going to put this energy so it's like okay I ever have to like get drunk masturbate get high fuck someone I need something I need to do something with this energy where is it gonna go no I'm like okay thank you for absorbing my energy because I don't have to go out there now and say oh my god let's go fuck because I have all these excess energy unless someone here wants to fuck I'm kidding I'm kidding I was like hey hey wait she asked in a safe space and there was even there was consent please no no this truly this is what I want to say I I want to say that I love the world I have missed the world and I love people so thank you for coming today and thank you for making this I hope a really a reminder a wonderful loving reminder that we have each other that we will not allow the fuckers to destroy us and that we will go out there and terrify the patriarchy and to every fascist fuck out there feminism feminism is putting them on notice that we will fucking destroy you so remember fuck the patriarchy and their revolution is my cunt thank you thank you thank you I mean for me is being such a joy and honor I was actually saying to friends and family and loved ones I'm like oh my god bonus what are my heroes I cannot fuck this up even though we're talking about fuck the patriarchy we are comrades we are seriously thank you so much and and and I was taking notes and I was like okay so this is my new uh uh my new manifesto I'm starting which is the revolution is my cunt I want my freedom with my own cake that's what I want and we will not wait for unfree mentally free us that's I need a t-shirt that says that right I really need a t-shirt that says that actually I was telling Mona earlier that um one of uh Ted X talks has become my screening for dating guys it's I get them to watch that first and if they don't agree we don't go on a second date she's looking you know I really I really think is one of the best I love that because someone wrote to me where is the person who said to me I'm bringing my date I'm sorry to put you like you know on like I'm on the lens here but this this wonderful person wrote to me and said I've just asked someone to on a first date to your event I'm like oh my god I'm honored and thrilled and I was like tell me what they say so she came back and she said they said yes and like the entire world on social media so we wish you both the best thank you all so much hopefully this talk will be the next screening for dates um thank you everybody Afrika writes on my cellar so before we end please do not leave the room I would like to invite Marian Wallace to come on stage to do the closing for us thank you wow just wow thank you so much for such a brilliant event and a perfect finale to the Africa rights festival so um I'm the lead curator for Africa at the British Library so I'm here on behalf of the library um just to briefly thank everyone who's worked so hard to make this festival a success so thank you to all of you for coming all the speakers and participants at the many Africa rights events that have been held um thanks to our events team here at the British Library and all our staff who have worked on this and of course to Africa rights and the Royal African Society um for organizing such a wonderful festival in spite of the odds and both in person which has been very joyful and online this is the eighth edition of the festival you've brought to us at the British Library and I hope there'll be many more a special thanks to Marcel Akita for her hard work in producing the festival it's now my pleasure to hand over to Arun Raute chair of the Royal African Society I like Marian just says wow this has been phenomenal um thank you Marian um as you know uh this is either the eighth or the ninth edition of the Africa rights um even though it's only it's less than the tenth edition it's the largest UK celebration of the best of Africa and diaspora literary works what a grand finale what a grand but also it's been an amazing three weeks I have to say that there's something really special about the Africa rights festival in the midst of it Abdul Razak Gunnar was named the 2021 Nobel Laureate in Literature and I understand that he was a guest earlier this year for the Africa rights Exeter Book Club series and I don't know if Marcel Akita Cape Wallace and Asher Ali knew something um and wanted to make sure that people realize what the possibilities are when you're associated with Africa rights my sincere appreciation to all the authors and all of you the attendees and person and online over the last three weeks I have to say thank you to you Mona et alhawi Layla Hussein and Laura Hanna for this incredible closing thank you to our principal partner the British Library special thanks to you Marion to Jonah Albert the British Library AV team and the unique media for the live streaming because I know there so many people around the world who get a chance to enjoy this conversation that Mona and Layla had and all of the other programs that we've featured uh online my gratitude to our sponsors the Arts Council England the British Council the Garfield Western Foundation and the Miles Molland Foundation I'd also like to acknowledge and thank our festival guests partners across marketing and programming with a special thanks to our BSL interpreters today Rachel Jones and Vivi and and and Vivi as well I would also like to I'd also like to thank our main booksellers and I think they're still out there you can get more books the Africa Book Centre and this book Love and of course our food vendor Little Baobab I didn't manage to get to them so I didn't get my Cheb Jen uh and the Pooley Yasser so I'm hoping to find them so I can enjoy some of that my gratitude to all of our volunteers you guys have been amazing and thank you to the Royal Africa Society and Africa Rite teams for a great job Nick Westcott, Dexter Haley, Marcel Akita, Beth O'Connor, Natalie Fiau, Imam Saleh, Bashiret Oladile, Anthony Lee, Vivian Dovey, Kaitlyn Pearson, Olivia Danso, Sonia, and all of the others that I haven't mentioned you know I call you my dream team you're truly a dream team you will agree with me that the session with Leila Hussain and Mona Elfahelwe on Patrick it was eye-opening and thought-provoking I will remember a lot that you've taught us today one that profoundly impacted me is not even realizing that Patricky is the oldest form and most prevalent form of occupation Leila at the end you also reminded us that we can have freedom with our own kick going to go and get my book signed so I'm delighted to announce that you can do the same right after the event Mona Elfahelwe has some of the books that you can get an opportunity for her to sign for you personally this is my first in-person event as chairperson of Royal Africa Society as I was named chair at the end of July I'm energized by what I've seen today by the talent and the commitment and I've seen what the possibilities are for us to change the world those of us who are in this room today I'm looking forward to all that we can do together to our scaling up and making more visible this great jewel called Africa rights and by the way the many other jewels as I call the products of the Royal Africa Society so you can also join us as a member today my colleagues and I are available to have a conversation with you and I don't know if any of you's in the room I see Nick and others if you can just wave so people can find you and others but there's also a stand outside and we can provide you any information and you can join today or later on at your own convenience but I am inspired by what I've heard today I'm inspired by the possibilities I'm inspired by how we can make sure that the world doesn't return to normal as Mona told us to make sure that we don't and it depends on each and every one of us and I hope that all of what you've seen over the last three weeks has inspired you in the way that it's inspired me thank you very much and I look forward to our next one